CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- A suspect has been charged with shooting a Chicago Firefighter who was putting out a car fire in the Albany Park neighborhood. And police are looking for others.
Four felony charges have been filed against 29-year-old Hollis Williams, a convicted felon who also rammed a police car with his car and ran over an officer’s foot while being arrested, according to police.
The incident occurred outside a building on the 3300 block of West Wilson Avenue where people have been squatting and selling drugs and where police found three guns after the firefighter was shot, police said.
It was 1 a.m. last Sunday when a car was set on fire in an effort to draw people out of the building, according to CPD Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan.
”These guys in the building are unfortunately some bad guys and they targeted their car, it appears, to draw them out of the building," Deenihan said. "They set this car on fire. They targeted their car to draw them out and unfortunately this exchange of gunfire occured.”
“My firefighter is at home, he is in good spirits and he is quite well," Ford said.
Interim Police Supt. Charlie Beck there’s an unspoken rule that you don’t attack firefighters.
“Whenever a public safety employee, particularly a firefighter, is attacked, we not only take it very seriously but we look at it as an attack on the whole fabric of society," Beck said.
Williams was convicted of drug possession in May 2016 and sentenced to 15 months in state prison, according to Cook County court records. He also faced weapons charges in 2013, but was found not guilty in a bench trial.
After the shooting, Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said three illegal weapons were found in an apartment near the scene.
“We have other suspects that we are looking for, but we have arrested one shooter, so that’s a tremendous testimony to the work of the men and women of CPD,” interim Chicago Police Department superintendent Charlie Beck said.
Williams is scheduled to appear in bond court Saturday morning.